Kentucky is having consistent success finding tight ends in Ohio

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Justin Rigg — (Photo by Dr. Michael Huang | Kentucky Sports Radio)

On Friday, Tanner Lemaster committed to Kentucky to give the Wildcats a tight end in the 2023 class. That position is being valued heavily in the Sean McVay/Kyle Shanahan pro-style scheme that has been installed in Lexington.

Meanwhile, in the Mark Stoops era, Kentucky has heavily recruited the state of Ohio. The bordering state has produced multiple signees in all 10 recruiting classes since the former Florida State defensive coordinator arrived on campus. That trend will continue in the class of 2023 as Vince Marrow continues to recruit the Buckeye State at a high level.

On the roster this season, Kentucky will have 17 scholarship players from Ohio. Tight end and offensive line are the only positions with at least three players. The tight end room has five scholarship players, and the offensive line room has 15 scholarship players.

Kentucky has consistently found great success mining the Buckeye State for tight end talent.

C.J. Conrad was the first big recruiting win for the position, and the LaGrange (Ohio) Keystone product came to Kentucky as a top-300 prospect in the class of 2015. Conrad would start 42 games for the Wildcats and was named a team captain in 2018. That set the table.

The next year, Kentucky added Justin Rigg out of Springboro (Ohio) High, and the low three-star prospect spent six seasons with the program playing in 63 games with 35 starts finishing his career with 50 receptions for 547 yards and five touchdowns.

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Kentucky dipped back into the state in the class of 2018 landing both Brenden Bates out of Cincinnati Moeller and Keaton Upshaw from Liam (Ohio) Senior. Both will be redshirt seniors in 2022, and each has started games in their Kentucky careers.

In the class of 2022, Kentucky went back to Cincinnati Moeller to sign Josh Kattus and followed that up with another Ohio recruiting win when Tanner Lemaster committed to the program on Friday.

The tight end position is quickly becoming a major part of the Kentucky offense and the Ohio recruiting pipeline has played a big role in finding quality players to fill those roles.